Boy Commandos is a fictional organization from DC Comics first appearing in Detective Comics #64 by Joe Simon and Jack Kirby. A combination of "kid gang" characters, an international cast of young boys fighting Nazis — or in their own parlance, "the Ratzies".
Creation
Simon & Kirby were hired away from Timely Comics by DC towards the end of 1941, primarily due to their success on Captain America, but without there being a clear purpose to the decision, nor title to work on. Finding themselves initially embroiled in the Captain Marvel lawsuit, Jack Liebowitz gave them free rein to create or revamp DC heroes. Initially, the duo created new versions of The Sandman, and Manhunter, before deciding that "kid gangs seemed to be the way to go". Teenage sidekicks were fast becoming a comics staple, intended to provide young characters with whom youthful readers could identify. Simon & Kirby's own Sentinels of Liberty had already succeeded in this mold, and had an influence on their subsequent creation. , Jerry Robinson and Joe Simon. Having already created the "Sentinels of Liberty" for Timely, they now created for DC the Newsboy Legion. Although America had not yet entered the war, headlines and news stories highlighted the role of British commandos, so Simon and Kirby fused the kid gang with the commando, and created The Boy Commandos. The international group included the French Andre Chavard, the English Alfie Twidgett, the Dutch Jan Haasan and an American only known as "Brooklyn". Debuting in the pages of Detective Comics #64 cover-dated June 1942, the team became extremely popular, also appearing in World's Finest Comics and were then soon spun off into their own title, launching with a 'Winter 1942' date. The title sold "over a million copies each month," and was one of DC's "three biggest hits" alongside Superman and Batman. Kirby drew around five pages a day of the title, but Liebowitz requested an even faster turn-around - fearing that the two would be drafted, as had many other industry professionals. Simon & Kirby hired "inkers, , colorists, and writers, striving to create a year's worth of tales". Among those hired was a young Gil Kane, who recalls being: , inked by Joe Simon. According to Jess Nevins' Encyclopedia of Golden Age Superheroes, "Most of their criminals are ordinary, either Germans and Japanese or merely human criminals, but there are also exotics like Crazy Quilt, Diamond Hand, and Mr. Bleak, he of the devilish shadow." Boy Commandos ran until issue #36, and was edited throughout by Jack Schiff. Among the individuals who assisted Simon and Kirby on the title were future-Superman legend Curt Swan, as well as Steve Brodie, Louis Cazeneuve and Carmine Infantino.
Fictional team biography
The eponymous characters were André Chavard from France; Alfie Twidgett from England, Jan Haasan from the Netherlands, and "Brooklyn" from the United States. An elite commando squad of orphaned children, led by grown-up Captain Rip Carter, they fought on all fronts of the Second World War. In September 1944, the Newsboy Legion teamed up with the Boy Commandos to stop armed and armored traitors based out of New York City. The team's adventures continued well past the war, even though there were many roster changes. Jan left first, having found relatives in his homeland to stay with. Alfie was replaced by a Texan named Tex. Percy Clearweather, a glasses-wearing genius, replaced André. It was revealed years later that Brooklyn was Dan Turpin, that André Chavard had become the head of the French Intelligence Département Gamma, and that Alfie Twidgett was now the head of the firm Statistical Occurrences Ltd., with his daughter Twiggie. In addition to the aligning of Metropolis Special Crimes Unit's Detective Dan Turpin with "Brooklyn", the team have seen print in a couple of titles since the late 1940s. In the 1970s, during Kirby's involvement at DC, several of their stories were reprinted in various books, particularly those written and drawn by Kirby himself who'd worked on a "Star Wars" satellite program, which S.O.L. had received a contract concerning its protection. Joining Alfie in this venture are his old teammates Andre, now head of the fictional Department Gamma of the French Secret Service, Jan, now a professor working for the , and their former mentor "Rip" Carter, now a general. It was implied that they would eventually come into conflict, along with the Blue Beetle, with corrupt European industrialist Klaus Cornelius, who had already used his influence to disband Europe's lead super-hero agency, the Global Guardians, and was working to resurrect the Boy Commandos' old enemy Agent Axis. However, the series ended before the storyline could reach fruition, and no further developments have been mentioned since then, although Cornelius did make a brief cameo during Kurt Busiek's Power Company miniseries. They made an appearance in the most recent incarnation of The Brave and the Bold, in which they teamed up with fellow World War II heroes, the Blackhawks.
Collection
DC published the first of 2 hardback collections of Simon and Kirby's work on the series:
